Distant Past
by Lapiz Goldfire
Summary: [WARNING! This story contains spoilers!] Life was boring in Canterlot until a bloodied-up human stumbles to the castle. With no recollection of events prior, the human must try to remember his purpose. But when he falls or a local gal (one with authority), how might he fare when he remembers? Minor references. [DISCLAIMER: I do not own MLP FiM, Animal Crossing, Hetalia, or SOGs.]
1. Chapter 1

"Is it me or has nothing interesting happened since Princess Twilight Sparkle became an Alicorn?" a bored guard said. He and his companion were standing directly in front of Canterlot Castle's entrance.

"I could care less," the other guard said. "It just means less work to do. We're basically getting paid for nothing, now."

"That is a true statement," the first guard said. He began to chuckle until he noticed a bipedal figure with a large sword on its back limping toward them. "What on earth is that!?" Both guards were petrified. As it got closer they noticed is was a dirty-blonde human male wearing a brown, blood-stained shirt with denim pants. Both of them ran toward the human, but once the got up to him, he collapsed onto the floor.

"H... help..." he stuttered, his face imbedded in the ground.

"Why are you covered in blood?" the second guard asked. "Answer that and we just might."

"It's..." the human coughed blood onto the pavement before he continued, "all mine."

"This human need urgent medical attention!" the first guard cried. "Get him into the infirmary!"

The human opened his eyes and sat up in the bed. Involuntarily, he clapped his hands to his stomach once he did so. "Sweet backflipping midgets, that hurts!" he shouted, obviously in a great deal of pain. An equal amount of pain was present on the exact opposite side of his body as well. "Someone must've run me through or something. These wounds hurt like a discus to the face!"

"It's good to see that you're awake," a feminine voice said behind him. The human turned around to see Princess Celestia standing in the doorway. "You had passed out from blood loss when you were brought here."

"I was?" he questioned. "I must have ticked off a narwal or something."

"You mean you don't remember what happened?" Princess Celestia asked, puzzled.

"Uh... nope," he said, somewhat disappointed in himself. "You got a name, sweet cheeks?"

"I am Princess Celestia of Equestria," she replied. 'Sweet cheeks?' her mind echoed. 'I've never heard anyone call somepony that before.'

"Nice to meet you, Your Highness," the human replied. "I'm Xander."

"There is no need to refer to me in such a formal way," she said to Xander. "Just call me Celestia, Princess Celestia at the most."

"Would Sally do?" he asked her. "I have trouble remembering unique names."

"I... I guess so," Celestia replied. 'Sally? This is quite a strange human, indeed.'

The human made an effort to stand up, but nearly collapsed upon doing so. "Are you alright!?" Celestia exclaimed.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine," he replied, lifting himself back onto his feet.

"You should lie down and get some rest," Celestia said, trying to encourage Xander into getting back into the bed.

"Nonsense," Xander retorted. "I won't get better if I don't walk it off."

"Very well," the princess replied. "Well, would you like me to escort you to the dining hall?"

"Yes, please," Xander replied. "Thanks, Sal."

"My pleasure," she replied. And with that they were off.


	2. Chapter 2

Xander sat down at his designated chair at the table and waited patiently for the food to be served. As he waited he heard the door open and close behind him. His head turned slowly to see Equestria's night-time princess, Luna.

The human stared at Luna for a few seconds. 'Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot,' echoed in his mind, causing him to remember a brown-haired man in a green shirt labeled "Tobuscus." Xander then jerked his head away. 'NO! She's a pony, and you're a human. This isn't right!' he shouted to himself. He turned his head to Princess Celestia and asked her "Who might that be?"

"Oh, her?" she questioned. "That's my sister, Princess Luna."

As Luna passed by she looked at the human. "Looks like our guest is feeling a bit better," she stated.

"It appears so," Celestia chuckled. "His wound is not quite healed yet, however."

"I see," she said. "Why did he not remain in the infirmary?"

"I'm not going to get better by just sitting around," Xander replied. "I need to move about."

"We have not been properly introduced, have we?" Luna asked. "I am Princess Luna, the lord of the night here in Equestria."

"What is that... thing!?" somepony shouted from the other side of the room. Luna let out a deep sigh before Xander looked toward the direction of the voice and saw Prince Blueblood standing there on the opposite side of the room. "Guards, get that vile creature out of here!"

Two guards, who obviously did not have the situation explained to them earlier, ran into the room and made an attempt to tackle Xander. In one swift motion however, the human fell back in his chair, causing him to roll over onto his feet and the guards to jump over him completely, and grabbed the chair like a weapon.

"Halt, all of you!" Princess Celestia demanded. Still facing away from the table, Xander swirled the chair and placed it down behind him. "This human is our guest and is to be treated as you would any other pony I invite into the castle."

"But auntie..." Blueblood started.

"No buts," Celestia stated, which caused Blueblood to pout. "I'm sorry, Xander. That was my nephew, Prince Blueblood. He is a bit rude at times."

'No question,' Xander said to himself. "It's no problem," he said to Celestia.

"I doubt he'll be any trouble for you if he gets to much on your nerves," Luna laughed.

"Pardon?" Xander questioned.

"You must be rather strong to have walked three miles after being run through," Luna replied. "If you can stand up to that, you could probably stand up to Blueblood and a few guards in a fight."

"Luna!" Celestia snapped. "That is not something we discuss at breakfast."

"Three miles..." Xander echoed. "How'd you know?"

"I had my Night Guards see how far the trail of blood you had left goes," she replied. "That is about the distance."

"I see..." Xander said, seeming kind of spacey. "Um... anyways, why we get to eating? I'm starving."

After breakfast, Xander began to wander around the castle. After a few minutes he stumbled across a room filled with guards who appeared to be sparring each other with assorted weapons. The human slowly entered the room.

"Hey, you're that human from yesterday," one guard called. Unlike the two he met the other day, however, this one was a unicorn wearing purple armor. "You feeling better?"

"Um... yeah, a bit," Xander replied, sceptical. "Where am I?"

"This is the Royal Guard Training Hall," the unicorn said. "Here is where I raise my finest troops... Oh, by the way, I'm Prince Shining Armor. I'm the captain of the unicorn division of the Royal Guards."

"I'm Xander," Xander said. "Are all captains called 'Prince' or just you?"

"Just me," he said. "I'm married to Princess Cadence, Celestia's niece. We actually rule over a different kingdom as of Celestia's request, but we visit every once in a while."

"Neato," Xander said. "Y'know, I may be a bit hurt but I'm pretty sure I could whoop you in a fight."

"Oh really?" Shining Armor asked. "Why don't you step into the sparring arena with me, then?"

"Don't need to ask me twice," Xander laughed as he jumped off of the safety rail into the last available arena. "What weapons we got to pick from?"

"Spears, swords, shields, staffs, axes, etc." Shining Armor answered as he stepped over to the weapon shelf.

"Toss me a sword," Xander shouted. He caught the sword Shining Armor tossed to him. Shining Armor walked into the arena unarmed. "You sure you want to do that?"

"Trust me, nopony is stronger than my magic... except the princesses," Shining Armor laughed.

Xander acted like he was sheathing his sword (only acting since there was no sheath) and charged toward Shining Armor. He swung his sword out of his imaginary sheath, but Armor's magic conjured a force field to deflect the attack. "I told you, nopony rival's my magic."

Xander chuckled for a second. "Yeah, maybe no PONY," he said. "But I'm NO pony. I'm a human." He pivoted sideways, his head still looking at Shining Armor, and extended his arm with his hand in the air. "Destruction of nature, gather in flame..." he chanted. "FIRE!" Out of his hand blasted a large stream of flames that pelted Armor's force field, causing it to crack intensely. By the time the flame died out, the shield was on the verge of breaking. At that point, Xander struck the shield with his sword once more causing it to shatter. He pointed his training sword at Shining Armor. "I win," he laughed.

Shining Armor was astounded. He stood there staring for a few seconds before he finally spoke again. "H-how did you do that?"

"Magic," Xander chuckled.

"Can you teach me how to do that?" the confused unicorn asked.

"Not a chance," he smiled. "I have a very low reserve of mana and humans need moonlight for it to recharge. However, on full moons we don't run out of mana. It's an interesting, yet confusing, concept." Xander turned to leave the room. "Well, I've got places to be. Ciao!"

'Good GOD, I'm bored,' Xander thought to himself. 'I wonder if there's anything going on around here.' "Oy, guard!" he called to a random guard. "This place have a bulletin board or something?"

"Yes, just outside the castle," he replied.

"Thank you kindly," Xander replied before heading off. Upon arrival, he noticed a post on it that was written on a gold piece of paper that read:

GRAND GALLOPING GALA

June 13th

All ponies must have golden ticket to attend.

"You raised my hopes and dashed them quite expertly," he said to himself. "Bravo!" He started to chuckle when he remembered a robot called Tinny Tim off of a cartoon he used to watch. 'Hold on... maybe I can talk to Sally about it.'

Princess Celestia was merely sitting in her throne, attending her standard royal duties when she heard a knock on the throne room door. "Guards, open the door," she called to the two by the door. The door opened to reveal Xander, but he was not wearing his leather jacket. Instead he was wearing a denim blue one and his hair appeared to be cut rather short. "Hello, Xander. What brings you..." but before she could finish she saw both of the guards fall over, their sides bleeding. Xander was holding a small wakizashi rather than his large sword. Celestia's face turned to a look of sheer horror.

"I have come to usurp your throne," he said calmly. Xander laughed as he slowly stepped toward her.


	3. Chapter 3

Celestia screamed as Xander raised his sword to strike her down. She was not expecting this from the person she had sheltered and was too horrified to fight back. All she could do was sit there and scream. Xander threw his sword down to slay her when he stopped and Celestia felt a liquid drop onto her: blood. The human looked at his shoulder where a small pocket knife was poking out.

"Oy, jackass," someone called from behind. "Leave Sal alone!" Celestia looked past Xander to see... well... Xander. This one, however, looked exactly like the one who she knew. Black leather jacket, longer hair, even the large sword he showed up with. "And if you don't mind, toss me my SOG back."

"Damn, I thought you were preoccupied," the denim jacketed Xander said. "No matter, I'll just kill you first."

"Not if I beat you to it," the leather jacketed Xander replied.

"W-what's going on?" Celestia questioned.

"Glad you asked," the Xander she, for the most part, trusted replied. The evil Xander was knocked away from her and the good Xander was standing in his place. "You see, everybody has a dark side. When stressed, the dark side will often take control of your body. Like your sister and Nightmare Moon..." He was cut off, trying to block a blow from the evil Xander. "My friends and I call them our Second Players, or 2Ps."

"Then why is your '2P' right there?" she questioned.

"I used to be really good at dealing with stress until I moved away from my home," he said while striking at his Second Player. "One day, I was so stressed that my 2P took over and tried to kill the people I had problems with." He again had to block another blow from his 2nd Player, though he followed it with a counter attack.. "However, our wills to remain who we were were so strong, we split into two separate beings." The 2P made yet another attempt to attack Xander, but this time it succeeded and jammed into his shoulder. "Ow, mother...! penis..." he screamed, though the last word made it out more subtly. He grabbed the wakizashi and threw it out of his arm. The good Xander kicked his 2P in the groin before bludgeoning him with the side of the broadsword.

"What, you too afraid to kill me?" Xander's 2P laughed.

"No, I'm just a better person than you," Xander said, frowning. "You have fun trying to kill others, where as I have fun watching them frolic. You try to level entire civilizations where as I try to help them thrive. And, just to spite you, I'll never kill you. You may try and try and try, but I'd never kill you."

"Heh, you're just a wuss," 2P Xander said.

"Maybe I am..." Xander said. "Maybe I am... Now, get out before I beat the everloving snot out of you."

2P Xander ran toward a window and dove out it, basically falling down the entire mountain. "Well that wasn't smart..." said Xander, staring at the window his Second Player jumped out of. He swirled his sword behind him and stabbed it back into his sheath. Then he turned around to face the princess, noticing how the room was trashed by the fight. "Sorry 'bout that," he told her. "I didn't expect to see him here."

"You lied about not remembering anything, didn't you?" Celestia asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No, I didn't," Xander replied. "I remembered over the course of the day. I regained most of them while visiting the taylor. I noticed a nice denim jacket and thought it might look good, but as I looked into the mirror I began to remember everything. My childhood, my time with my friends Feliciano and co., my stay in Treehut, everything. I even remembered why I came here... Him."

"My friend Rome gave me this sword before he supposedly died," Xander continued, unsheathing his sword. "I've only used it to fight for justice... and in one case women, but I was really immature back then." He raised the sword into the air. "I fight for what I believe in: Honor! Justice! Life!"

Sadly, Luna entered in once he finished speaking, and she had not heard anything through the soundproof walls of the throne room. "Sister, you've been in here for quite a while," she started, not having noticed anything. "Is everything..." Finally, she saw it. The blood spattered on Celestia, Xander with his sword in the air, his left shoulder bleeding, the two dead guards on the floor. Luna was stricken with fear, unable to move.

Xander turned around, dropping his sword on the ground. "Well... you've caught us at a bad time, it seems..." he said, trying to keep a poker face as good as possible. "I... don't think I can explain this and seem sane, so I'm just gonna..." Quickly he grabbed his sword and bounded out the window, stabbing the sword into the wall, using it as leverage to launch himself back into the town, though the landing was still rather rough.

"Sister, what did he do to you?" Luna asked. "What happened to the guards?"

"N-nothing," Celestia stuttered.

"You're just trying to protect him, aren't you?" Luna interrogated. "He said he'd kill you if you told, didn't he?"

"No, that's not it at all!" Celestia said. "He actually saved my life."

"He did?" Luna asked. "From who?"

"Um... himself?" she said, not sure how that would sound.

"I... I don't think I follow..." Luna said, hesitantly.

"Look, I'll explain, but it won't make too much sense," Celestia said. 'Wait, she has suffered the fate of having to deal with her 2P... maybe she will understand... Hold on, how did Xander know about Nightmare Moon? No matter, I'll ask him later.' "Alright, well..."

Author's note: Before I post any more chapters, I'ma post the prequels to this story. Believe it or not, this is intended to be the third story in the series, though that didn't pop into my head until I began to get into the Hetalia 2P stories and Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I'm going to update these periodically, starting it with a Hetalia fic followed by an Animal Crossing fic. Sorry for the sudden change of plans.


End file.
